Saturday, January 18, 2014

Time for Breakfast Links! Here's our weekly round-up of favorite links to other blogs, web sites, images, and articles, all gathered for you from around the Twitterverse.
• Spangles, sequins, and spangs, o my! All about historic sparklies.
• Oliver Twist,Charles Dickens, & George Crukshank.
• Edgar Degas paints fellow-artist Mary Cassatt – and here, too.
• Celestial charts, 1823, attributed to a mysterious "lady", were perforated to light the stars.
• Cock ale, a 17th c. "homely" aphrodisiac.
• Not just Sherlock Holmes: the list of Baker Street's famous residents include William Pit the Younger.
• How Monopoly helped WWII prisoners escape.
• Notorious Georgian celebrity Elizabeth Chudleigh: public near-nakedness & bigamy.
• Image: From The Times, 1853: the original story that inspired 12 Years a Slave.
• Mr. Grimstone and the revitalized Mummy Pea: a taste of Ancient Egypt in Victorian London.
• If you have 4 "sivil oranges", then you can make this 18th c. recipe for Orange Cream.
• A kangaroo in a 16th c. manuscript could change modern understanding of Australia's history.
• The archives of Chatsworth House contain over 1150 letters by Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire; here are two.
• Image: a gentleman never swims without a top hat.
• Dating advert from The Times, 1832: "I want a woman to look after the pigs while I am out at work."
• From 'unlike' to 'flash mob': five words that are older than you think.
• Have King Alfred the Great's bones been discovered in Winchester?
• Sit up straight! Bad posture and the "neck swing" in the 18th c.
• Perhaps the most bizarre disaster in US history: the Boston Molasses Flood.
• Image: Early photo of the town of Haworth, c 1870, had not changed much since the Brontës lived there.
• T.L.Busby's Costume of the Lower Orders, 1820.
• Actress Vivien Leigh was a wartime star - and a knitter for the cause, too.
• The very definition of a "hostile takeover": East India Company violence towards a Portuguese ship, 1626.
• Conceal and carry gun moll, 1923, Chicago (plus what exactly 'gun moll' means.)
• A "bone automata": hand-carved French folk art, c. 1820, is a miniature working guillotine.
• Image: Now this is a library! Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial en Madrid (Espana)
• Rare color photos of circus showgirls of the 1940s-1950s.
• The magnificent Renaissance banquets for the wedding of Annibale Ill Bentivoglio and Lucrezia d'Este.
• "Ooh, if I just wasn't a lady, what wouldn't I tell that varmint": hoop skirts, the New Deal, and Gone with the Wind.
• Margaret Beaufort, mother of the Tudor dynasty of kings.
• George I's chocolate-making kitchen uncovered at Hampton Court.
• The fascinating story behind one of the most well-known emblems of old time Main Street: the cigar store Indian.
• Image: Illustration from a medieval manuscript; or, if Game of Thrones gets really weird.Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.